Good news, but it looks like the dept. of killjoys might still be at it. This arrived in my inbox today: (extract from longer message forwarded from Hamish Birchall)

...It all sounds great - but the benefits for pubs and bars could be undermined if a worrying and indeed misleading suggestion within the DCMS revised licensing Guidance is ratified. > > This Guidance is secondary legislation to which licensing authorities 'must have regard'. The words of the Licensing Act take precedence, but the Guidance is what usually informs licensing officer enforcement. And paragraph 15.14 of the revised draft wrongly suggests that licensing officers might in certain cases circumvent the LMA and impose pre-emptive conditions on live music even when there has been no licence review. The draft was put out for public consultation by DCMS on 22 August and this closes on 28 September: http://www.culture.gov.uk/consultations/9291.aspx > > Serious concerns have already been raised by the music industry and campaigners, but it is not yet clear whether they will be satisfactorily addressed. The new Guidance will probably not be published until the end of October. If it fails to meet the concerns already raised, its implementation could be further delayed in Parliament or subject to judicial review. > > For some campaigners, like John King, the revised licensing Guidance may create more problems than it solves for live music. His thorough and entertaining analysis has been published today by MusicTank: http://www.musictank.co.uk/blog/devil-in-the-detail > > For a DCMS summary of the effect of the Live Music Act see: > http://www.culture.gov.uk/what_we_do/regulated_entertainment/8955.aspx [scroll down]